FCP Quicktime Export-Is there any loss?

[David Roth weiss]

[Darren Gardner] “I’ve captured a piece of footage, pulled it on to the timeline and made a simple edit of shaving a few seconds off the front and tail end of the clip. If I export the clip as a self-contained movie, is there any information loss to the remaining footage?”

That really depends on how you captured it. What codec did you use?

Exporting as a self-contained movie at current settings definitely keeps your video as close as possible to what’s on the timeline, but the codec you use determines if you lost a generation. HDV for example gets hits at almost every turn.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Darren Gardner]

I captured DV25 footage using the DV NTSC preset with an AJA Kona LSe
and I plan to export using DV NTSC.

What’d you think?

[David Roth weiss]

If there is any hit at all it probably insignificant, as in a few zeros or ones lost along the way. Any transitions or effects would be hit with DV compression.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Chris Borjis]

it “might” be ok for one pass of compression, what will really be affected by that is titles and anything with the color red in it.

pure red looks bad even on one export with a DV codec.

[Darren Gardner]

Thanks for the quick responses! This is just the kind of confirmation I need. Question though regarding ‘one-pass compression’. I’m using the Quicktime export function under the file menu in FCP to do the compressing. Is this function using one-pass compression, or should I look to another means of export to ensure the least information loss possible?

Oh, and there are no transitions or other effects involved in these exports. So that shouldn’t be a problem.

Thanks so much for your help!

Darren

[Jeremy Garchow]

Use Export > Quicktime Movie and leave the ‘recompress all frames’ unchecked and making it self contained ensures you can use that export in the future when the rest of the media is offline. This will offer no further compression to your movie provided that everything is rendered in your timeline as it’s basically a digital copy of your footage put together in one QT movie. Using Quicktime Conversion will recompress your movie.

[Darren Gardner]

Great! I’ll do just that! I love the COW! Thanks for all of your help!

Darren

[David Roth weiss]

[Darren Gardner] “Great! I love the COW!”

Careful Darren, in most states they frown upon that…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.